Echoes Of Deception

The Chip

Nick sat on the kitchen floor, back against the wall, blood drying on his hands. Leah hadn’t said a word since the fight. She just stared at the three masked guys tied with electrical cables and bedsheets, half in wonder, partially in fear.

One of them moaned and moved. Nick aimed for the knife on the counter and focused his attention on the man.

“Don’t,” he growled. “You move again, and I swear I’ll cut off your trigger finger.”

The man went still.

Leah swallowed hard, her eyes moving from the intruders to Nick. “What’s that?”

He looked up at her, his chest rising and dropping. "I don't know."

"You moved like you've done this before."

“Maybe I have.”

“That doesn’t scare you?” He asked

Nick wiped the blood with a towel. “It terrifies me.”

He took a glance at the floor. During the fight, one of the males dropped a small black device, similar to a phone but slimmer.. Nick picked it up and pressed the screen.

A red light blinked.

Then a soft voice said, “Target acquired. Coordinates sent.”

Nick’s stomach dropped.

“They tracked me here.”

Leah stepped back, her hand covering her mouth. “What does that mean?”

“It means more of them are coming.”

He stood and scanned the room. “We have to go.”

Nick checked around the house, grabbing water bottles, a backpack, and non-perishable foods he could found. Leah remained still in the doorway.

He turned to her. “Get your coat. You can’t stay here.”

Her voice was small. “They’re after you, not me.”

“They came through your door with guns. That makes you part of this now.”

“But—”

“No buts,” he snapped, then softened. “Please, Leah. You saved my life. Let me protect yours.”

She hesitated first, then nodded and ran to her room.

Nick took a moment to enter the bathroom and lock the door. He removed his shirt to look at the unusual swell under his skin once more.. Gritting his teeth, he picked up a scalpel from Leah’s supply shelf.

He didn’t know why he was so sure but he knew it didn’t belong there.

The first cut made his vision swim. He bit down on a towel and sliced deeper, pulling the skin apart with trembling fingers. Blood ran down his stomach.

Finally, he felt it hard, round and cold.

A chip.

He used tweezers to pull it out. It was no bigger than a SIM card, but embedded with fine wires and circuitry.

He stared at it, heart pounding.

He hadn’t just been tracked.

He’d been programmed.

By the time Leah returned, Nick had cleaned the wound and bandaged it. He held the chip in one hand and showed it to her.

“This was in me.”

Her eyes widened. “What is that?”

“I think it’s how they’ve been tracking me. Maybe more.”

Leah reached out to touch it, then pulled her hand back. “You cut it out yourself?”

“I don’t trust anyone to do it”

They stared at each other for a long moment.

Finally, she whispered, “Where are we heading to?”

Nick looked out the window. Snow was beginning to fall again. The sky was gray and unforgiving.

“I need to find someone,” he said. “Someone who might know what they did to me.”

Leah’s brow furrowed. “Who?”

“A woman. I don’t remember her name… but I remember her voice. She called me Nicholas.”

“You think she knows you?”

“I think she loved me. And I think she betrayed me.”

They left in Leah’s old pickup truck. The road ahead was empty and cold. Nick sat in the passenger seat, watching the trees rush by.

He turned the chip over in his fingers.

“Why did you help me?” he asked.

Leah kept her eyes on the road. “You looked like you were dying.”

“That’s not the only reason.”

She didn’t answer him immediately .

Finally, she said, “My brother. He died three years ago. Car accident. That’s what they told us, anyway. But when I saw the autopsy report, something didn’t make sense. His brain was swollen. Burned, almost. Like someone tampered with it.”

Nick’s stomach tightened. “What are you saying?”

“I think someone experimented on him.”

He turned toward her fully. “What was his name?”

“Evan Monroe.”

The name stirred something—distant, foggy.

“I’ve heard it,” Nick said quietly. “Somewhere inside me.”

Leah glanced at him. “Then we need to find out why.”

They drove for hours, stopping once at a gas station. Nick used cash from the jacket he’d woken up in. The cashier eyed the bloodstained shirt but didn’t say a word.

Back in the car, Leah spoke without looking at him.

“There’s someone I know. A tech guy. Used to work in defense contracts before he went off-grid. If anyone can tell us what that chip does, it’s him.”

Nick nodded. “Let’s go.”

By nightfall, they arrived to a lodge on the edge of a frozen lake. Smoke streamed from the chimney. Inside, it smelt of burnt coffee and soldering wires.

"Leah?" a deep voice yelled from the room. A middle-aged man with an aged beard and a cotton shirt came into the light. "Didn't expect you back."

“I need a favor, Micah.”

Micah looked Nick up and down. “He looks like trouble.”

“He’s worse,” Leah said. “But I trust him.”

Micah raised a brow. “That’s new.”

She gave a half-smile.

Nick handed over the chip to him. “Can you tell us what is in it?”

Micah grabbed it and moved to an untidy desk.. After plugging it into a small device and typing rapidly, he frowned.

“This isn’t just a tracker,” he said. “It’s a neural feedback loop. Military-grade. Looks like it was designed to override brain function. Control behavior. Implant thoughts.”

Nick’s stomach dropped. “Control me?”

“Maybe,” Micah said. “Or maybe monitor what you know.”

Nick clenched his fists.

Micah tapped a few keys. A file opened on his screen.

The title read: PROJECT AURA: Subject 01 – Nicholas Cross.

Leah covered her mouth. “It’s you.”

Nick stared at the screen.

Suddenly, an image popped up a video feed.

A younger version of himself, strapped to a chair, eyes open wide, wires connected to his head.

His own voice, screaming: “Shut it off! Shut it off! She’s not part of this!”

Leah turned to him, her eyes wide. “Who were you trying to save?”

Nick’s hands shook.

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “But I think someone died because of me.”